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Can Bulgaria Beat
The Balkan Curse?

Updated April 21, 1999 12:01 a.m. ET

By Elizabeth Pond, author of "The Rebirth of Europe," just out from Brookings.

I n some Balkan countries, the current political stakes are elementary: sheer survival in Macedonia and Albania, stability in Romania. By contrast, Bulgaria is the one ex-communist nation in the region that has actually laid the foundation for a liberal, market democracy. It is now threatened by the battle in neighboring Yugoslavia. If the West wins in Kosovo and discredits ethnic hatred, the chances that Bulgaria will succeed improve;...